


what did you hope to learn about here?

by charleybradburies



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Awkwardness, Bets & Wagers, Break Up, Breaking Up & Making Up, Canon Character of Color, Canon Disabled Character, Cliche, Confessions, Confrontations, Exes, F/M, Female Friendship, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Intervention, Lesbian Character, Los Angeles, Love Confessions, Love Triangles, Lovers to Friends, Male-Female Friendship, Matchmaking, Not Actually Unrequited Love, POV Female Character, POV Multiple, POV Outsider, Pre-Relationship, Scheming, Season/Series 02, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, Sexual Tension, Short, Surprises, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 03:41:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5769904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charleybradburies/pseuds/charleybradburies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[S2 PeggySous AU.] Rose is just as much an intelligence agent as any other SSR employee.</p><p>Title from "Real World" by Matchbox 20.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Rose is just as much an intelligence agent as any other SSR employee. She might not get credit from, well, more than two of the field agents, but she’s the one who plays every single day at being something else. She's answered plenty of boring phone calls, fetched plenty of coffee, and seen far too many horrid performers pass through the theatre company. 

She also has eyes. And ears. And intuition. All of which work, and properly.

Which is how she knows she really has no choice but to do something about this. Violet is nice, and Jason isn’t half bad, either, but they’ve both got terrible luck, at least with romance, and at least for now - because they'd both fallen for people whose hearts had already been claimed. And things moved fast, as things always did around here, especially after the war, when everyone else moved fast, too. Everyone was scrambling to find someone they didn’t want or have to let go of.

And then, of course, there were those frustrating people who had so much goddamned trouble letting themselves hold onto anyone, and vice versa.

And it got them into even more trouble than they were paid to get into, and gave Rose trouble because she _cares_ and she _worries,_ and maybe it’s not her job, but _someone_ has to do it. That was the nice thing about Mr Jarvis when he came round, and then the nice thing about Violet...and then about Mrs Jarvis….and then about Jason.

They all seem reasonable enough.

+

Daniel had been damned quick to try to move on, to keep some momentum with feeling like women actually might like him - something which he'd shared to Rose that he wasn't sure about, after he'd heard about her own...preferences. And of course Rose tried to assure him otherwise, but when you don't like men in the first place it's hard to make that opinion count.

And Daniel’s father hadn't helped; he'd come over to help set Daniel’s place up, a nice little house that Senior worried was too much for Daniel to handle, and he'd brought a goddamned ring set with him - Daniel’s mother's, of course: family heirlooms from his paternal grandmother, whose husband had died before Daniel’s parents had married, and had passed on the rings in remembrance, and expected their son to do the same, meaning that Daniel’s future wife was to wear them. He'd only handed them over when he was leaving, moments from catching a cab away from the office, not wanting to give Daniel a chance to give them back. 

Daniel had thrown the box in a drawer, growled - mostly to himself - about not having anyone to propose to in the first place, and had probably forgotten about it for the most part, except that his father was keen to remind him that Daniel's grandmother wanted to meet _his_ children. 

No pressure, of course. Not like he's a federal agent with the safety of the world on his very strong shoulders, nosiree.

It was terrible watching, since Rose, of all people, saw the flashes of thought that ran through, about all the things he could have and didn't say to Peggy, the sitting around praying for the answer as to what to say if he ever convinced himself to call her (which he only had once, and he hung up quickly enough that Rose knows it couldn’t possibly have gone through), hating that she was still back in New York and thinking how on _earth_ could it be feasible to build anything romantic without knowing when they’d ever see each other, and just...everything. Neither of them seemed to know how to keep talking to each other, and Daniel didn’t particularly try, although not totally for lack of effort; even just from what he told Rose, which she knew was usually a watered-down version, he put a great deal of thought and anxiety into it. Too much, if anyone asked her, but Daniel was never willing to believe that Peggy was anywhere near as enamored as he’d been. 

It was a lie, of course; she’d only taken longer to realize it.

+

Rose can hear the laughter all the way from the front door. She sees if it’s open first, instead of bothering anyone, and it is, so she just goes in, waving goodbye to the cabbie as he leaves Stark’s property...probably wondering what the hell a flamingo was doing there.

Heh. 

It _was_ Howard Stark. Rose knew better than to think too far into most things that circled back to some idea of his.

“Oh, look who it is, our guest of honor!” Ana cheers when she sees Rose, and comes over to hug her. Rose realizes she hadn’t warned Peggy about that, but figures she’d dealt well enough, since she hadn’t complained about the touchy-feely-ness and utter… _non-Edwin-ness_ of Ana’s character. Everyone else’s greetings are shorter, but hey, at least Edwin’s involves tea and Violet’s, sugar cookies. 

“Sorry to take time out of everyone’s Sunday, really,” Rose segues after a little bit, only to be shot down a moment later for having the gall to apologize for such a thing. 

“There’s a situation that I think needs some dealing-with.”

“With the SSR?” Ana gasps. “Sorry if I seem too animated, I just...Edwin never takes me along for the ride with any of the spy stuff, oh, this is exciting!”

Violet - naturally - is the one who juts in afterwards. “Peggy.” 

Her voice has just a tinge of bitterness, but it somehow comes with more tenderness than Rose expected.

“Wait, should I not call her that? I’ve only just met her...I mean, I feel like I know her already, but…”

“But that’s what we’re here to talk about, isn’t it?” interjects Jason after Violet’s voice peters out, and Rose gives something of a shrug, though she’s not really sure how it comes off.

Violet sighs as though something’s just begun to make sense. It sounds suspiciously like a noise Peggy makes sometimes when she’s just picked up a great lead. 

Well, it’s not really that suspicious.

“There _was_ something between them," she surmises. 

"That’s the only question Daniel’s ever refused to answer from me, is whether they were together.”

Rose winces. “Well, darling, I have _half_ a yes for you, and one and a half...not exactly’s. They never _were_ together.”

One of Violet’s hands flies to her heart, as do both of Ana’s. Violet realizes only a moment later that the emergency call that had come in while she and Daniel had been on their way out had been about Peggy. Her first, and rather distressed, question, is whether Peggy’s okay, and when Ana launches into reassuring her, she’s visibly relieved.

This is even easier than Rose had expected.

+

Also easier than Rose had expected: fooling some very smart, extremely stubborn, and somewhat unsuspecting spies into confessing things to people who weren’t their enemies. Rose could thank _God_ above and any saint who had half a thing to do with it. They put up so much fight, so much resistance, that the moment it really starts to crumble all hell breaks loose and worse.

It’s one of the worst arguments Rose has ever eavesdropped on, except for the fact that no physical violence happens, not outside of Peggy slamming shut the door to Daniel’s office as she stomps out, trying in vain to pretend that tears are longer than a second away from falling, and Daniel lashing out - mostly at his desk, from what Rose can hear - a couple moments later.

“Maybe it _is_ Thompson’s fault. Maybe I just needed to see that I was actually wrong about you, Daniel. That maybe you’re not like the other guys in the office, maybe I’m not totally invisible, but this...this is worse. You’re worse. I know _they_ don’t give a damn, I _know_ they think little of me, but you...you made me believe you were really on my side. That you might not agree with my methods but you _respected_ me, you cared. Maybe I needed to know just how much of an imbecile I was being, letting myself be so affected by a man again, waiting around for the chance to find out whether you might ever _consider_ loving me back. But you clearly don’t want or need me around at all, not even to make your bloody coffee, so for God’s sake, just tell Jack you’re sending me back to New York and be done with it already.”

The slam of the door echoes in Rose’s head for an inordinate length of time.

+

Peggy calls in sick the next day. Rose pretends to buy the act, but confirms with Ana that she’s been crying. When Rose goes to tell Daniel - because she’d rather knock than call, if she can, and it’s barely nine so everyone other than the two of them has just gotten there - there’s a card on Peggy’s desk in a nice dark red envelope. The same kind she’d gotten a thank-you note from Violet in a short while ago, she realizes upon closer examination. Daniel’s noticeably disheartened by the news of Peggy’s absence, and claims not to know where the card came from. Rose pretends to believe _him_ , too.

God, they were gullible. It would be cute if it weren’t so damn frustrating.

+

Peggy actually _gets_ sick that weekend. The Jarvises are just plain concerned, Rose is concerned because Peggy seldom gets sick, Jason brings by a nice Get Well card, and then there’s Daniel and Violet.

Daniel’s concerned. He’s very concerned. He gets her medical records shipped to the office with a rush on them just to clarify that yes, she hasn’t seen a doctor about anything even remotely influenza-like since childhood. They’re not sure it’s work-related - she’s certainly not freezing over - and they’re not sure she needs anything more than some rest, some food, and a little bit of whiskey, but Daniel comes close to insisting she be taken to the hospital on the SSR’s dime.

Until, that is, Violet volunteers to go check up on her. Daniel’s not particularly a fan of the idea, but Peggy’s refused a hospital visit and it’s not like Daniel doesn’t trust Violet to do her job to the best of her ability, so he doesn’t make any fuss about it. Mr Jarvis picks her up after work two days to go over to the Stark property. Peggy calls Rose after the first time to complain about how it’s so hard that the girl’s just so _nice._ She’s not a person who’s easy to dislike, that’s for sure, nor a person who often dislikes people.

Howard comes home on the second, to his house full with laughter, and chicken noodle soup and tea and cookies. Daniel stays later at work. From her paperwork station Rose sees him pick up the phone twice; he never dials. Thompson calls in, and every question that might be about Peggy is rather clearly - although not at all gracefully - dodged, outside of telling Thompson that she’s caught the flu. He’s still mad about her having been sent, especially on false premises, to Los Angeles. 

_Because, Jack, he’s already goin’ out with a girl, and she’s a damn nice one._

But one thing that Daniel Sousa is not - of which, Rose then supposes, there are quite a few things - is _subtle._

And Daniel doesn’t even know about the bet that Jack’s about to lose. 

_Rose_ was the one who knew that getting them together would take some tooth-pulling.


	2. Chapter 2

“A _what_?”

Peggy sees Jarvis wince all the way over at the kitchen counter. _Leave it to Angie…_

“Oh, you heard me.”

“I heard you all right, I’m not deaf. But I didn’t think _he_ was dumb!”

“Angie!” Peggy’s voice sounds like a whine. She hates it, but despises that she can’t really help it.

“Oh, come on! It’s entirely obvious what the right choice here would be. And if he doesn’t know that...I don’t really want to have to tell you that you’re better off without him but _someone_ has to.”

Peggy gulps and tries to take a deep breath; her heart’s too heavy on her lungs for her to manage one, but it’s better than nothing.

+

Daniel’s not in his office when Rose comes back in the morning.

Peggy, however, is at her desk. Well, what of a desk she has. She’s spent most of her time in Los Angeles on her feet, so there’s nothing personal about it so far. 

Rose can tell she’s typing out a report from outside the room, but as she walks closer she sees the envelope slipped in between some loose sheets of paper on top of the desk. Peggy startles when she notices Rose, and Rose’s heart beats faster simply because that’s just so _rare._

“I was distracted, sorry, Rose. Good morning.” Her voice is tellingly blank.

“Are ya feelin’ better, Peg?”

Peggy hesitates, enough that she totally knows Rose notices it.

“Somewhat, yes.”

“That’s good. Better’n’not.”

Peggy forces a nod, and Rose walks all the way over and sets a calm hand down on her shoulder. 

“Secret admirer?” she murmurs curiously, hoping Peggy might divulge something, but it’s just as another agent is walking in, and everything’s blown. 

“Something like that...I’d really rather _not_ go into it.” Peggy replies softly. Rose squeezes her shoulder and leaves her alone. For today, it’s good enough that she knows Rose is still on her side and paying attention. 

She reiterates the point at the end of the day, because it turns out that Peggy and Daniel _can_ actually coexist in the same office - at least, on a paperwork-heavy day - without saying a word to each other. (Jason even brings it to Rose after hours, since they both apparently decided to talk to him more than usual instead.) Peggy bristles at Rose’s questioning, but does manage to calmly say that they’ve had an argument recently and are on complicated terms with one another for the time being.

Not like she has to tell Rose twice.

+

It’s a couple of days after Peggy gets better - and two weeks after the meeting at the Jarvises’ - before Violet’s got her thoughts together enough to push forward. Daniel, as the honest and true gentleman, was the hardest piece to fit into the puzzle. He’d still be loyal if he had a whore for a girlfriend, well and truly.

Daniel plops down on the couch after work, legs hanging off and hands to his face in stress. Violet sets his cup of coffee on the table in front of them but keeps her hands to his arm and shoulder, in recall of that Sunday gathering. She doesn’t have to make this even harder for anyone than it is already. Regardless, he’s not the most forthcoming man in the world, but she does know it didn’t start with her.

For such a wonderful man, he really did have such terrible luck.

Well, no. Being alive was great luck, even if was probably because even God knew better than to take away someone like Daniel Sousa from the world he was slaving away to save. Daniel’s former boss deciding to push him and Peggy closer together was pretty okay luck, even if it had been painfully awkward and mostly just plain painful so far; and having Rose around was good: she was always fantastic, all kind and bright and insightful. 

“Confused, more than anything else than I can tell,” is apparently how Daniel feels; Violet decides against immediately adding some less neutral adjectives to that mix, instead waiting for him to talk, since he almost always does, eventually.

“It’s just...I thought that for once, the past was the past, but this case...this case - this...is just...tough. Real, real tough. And I don’t...know what to do about it.”

His sigh is painful, and even though he makes quite the effort not to look her in the eye, Violet feels his slight shaking and she takes a deep breath.

“About Peggy.”

That split second seals everything. 

Something curiously like fear flashes through what Violet can see of his eyes immediately before his head snaps over to her.

“I never said….”

Violet presses one of her patented nurse smiles onto her face, the one she uses to comfort people who aren’t happy about having to go to surgery and in situations of that sort.

“You didn’t _have_ to, Daniel.”

“Violet…” he starts protesting, sounding suspiciously apologetic.

“Tell her.”

“Excuse me?”

“ _Tell her_ , Daniel.”

She’s not exactly sure what sound he makes a moment after that, but whatever it is, it’s an attempt not to scoff or laugh, too.

“It’s really _not_ that simple.”

“Maybe. Or maybe, the two of you are the ones _making_ it complicated.”

He stays silent, as far as Violet can tell primarily in disbelief. She admits to herself that it makes sense since he’d been confused already and now she was doing probably the opposite of what he’d expected, but there’s a lot of air left to clear still.

“I know that you wanted to move on, make a new life. I know you thought you’d started to do that, and I don’t think you’re wrong about _that._ But sometimes, what we want isn’t what’s best, or...what we need. And yes, you are absolutely the kindest, gentlest, bravest, man I’ve ever been with, but I’m certain that every woman you’ve ever dated can say the same. And yes, things have been awkward with Peggy, but outside of your worry you’ve been much more like the man I believe you to be since she got here. And you and Peggy, the way you talk about working together, the way a switch went off in you as soon as she was in danger, the fact that she agreed to come to L.A. because she was told _you_ asked for her… _you_ two _need_ each other.”

A couple tears come up, but she’s still got her smile on, and slowly, Daniel’s expression softens. 

“And how are you….”

“I’ve come to care too much about you, Daniel, to be able to watch you hurting yourself, even hurting _her_ , like this. And Peggy’s precious, and I’m _sure_ I couldn’t pass you on to better hands. After all, you do report she’s known for things like knocking men unconscious with staplers to the head.”

“That happened _once._ ”

“And you’ve _told_ me about that detail _thrice._ But don’t worry, if anyone comes into my ward with a stapled forehead, I’ll ring.”

She gets a chuckle out of him, with that and a bump of her shoulder against his. 

“Go, Daniel. For God’s sake, finish your coffee and get your cute butt over to the Jarvises’ and _tell her_ how you feel.” 

“And what about you?” he says bristly. “How do you - I mean, we were - this wasn’t just a, a stopgap, Violet, please, please know that. I did - I do - I...I thought that I-”

“Love me. And I think you _do,_ too. And I love _you._ But people can love each other and not be meant to be together. And just because that might be true doesn’t make these few months any less real, or marvelous, or anything. But you are _in love_ with someone else. Not that I’ll pretend I’ve asked Peggy about _her_ feelings, or that she’d be honest with me if I did, although I suppose we’re sort of friends now. Well, at least I hope so. If she’s pretending to like me to be nice, she’s awfully good at it.”

“No, I don’t think she’s pretending, Violet,” he sighs. “You aren’t exactly _hard_ to like.”

“Well, I wasn’t thinking about it like that, just...if I were her I probably wouldn’t like me much, either. As far as she’s concerned I pretty much came out of nowhere like a freight train and...drove straight over her, the poor thing.”

“I’m really not sure she thinks of it like that.” 

Violet knows that his gut reaction is to be comforting, but oh, how it tells her so much more.

“No, Daniel, you aren’t. Because you won’t even talk to her about the matter to begin with. How _could_ you know?” 

With a groan, he presses his eyes shut and leans his head back. 

“Last time I checked, wasn’t _I_ the federal agent? I’m usually _doing_ the interrogating.”

“It’s been a few months, some of your swagger and charisma’s probably rubbed off.”

Daniel cocks an eyebrow at her, but looks like he’s about to laugh.

“...if you say so.”

+

The ring slips easily into a drawer in Daniel’s apartment, right next to a bunch of barely-unpacked books he hasn’t touched or maybe even thought about since he’d gotten to Los Angeles.

That had been so stupid of him, thinking he could move on in the blink of an eye. He hadn’t even fallen out of love with her back when he was on the edge of believing that she was committing treason behind the SSR’s back and sleeping with Howard Stark - why should distance have done anything? Plenty of men had gone off to war and had girls at home that they’d returned to still, just as enamored as before, if not more. He’d gotten a bunch of wedding invitations like that - most just weeks after surviving soldiers had started to return stateside. 

He really needed to think things through more. Or less, maybe, because it might have been the thinking that had made him miss something the first time around, when he and Peggy had worked together in New York. 

_The chance to find out whether you might ever ___consider _loving me back._

At least, that's what she'd said. But God, he can’t remember a day he’s known her that he _hasn’t_ loved her. 


	3. Chapter 3

He should have expected it, really. 

He and Jack were slightly more amicable now that they didn’t have to see and work with each other, but only slightly: Jack had gotten _his_ promotion because of Dooley’s death, the default when the only two other agents directly working with Dooley at the time were a woman and a cripple, but _Daniel_ had gotten the first shot at leading the Los Angeles office, a consolidation of the efforts of the three that had previously been on the West Coast, since wartime had lowered the SSR’s usefulness. It made sense that Jack would want to trip him up a little, and Daniel’s read Jack’s report of their arrest of Fenhoff, so he knows what the man said - knows that even without the fact of mind control he might well have shot them both if he’d been listening, which was a frightening thought that he didn’t seem to be able to shove away. 

Everyone gave him enough grief without throwing him under the bus for liking Peggy, too, but of course once they’d collectively decided it was fact, they never really stopped doing either. He’d thought that would have been left behind in New York, and none of the agents here had known Peggy personally so for the most part it had, except that Daniel decided to bring Rose - which he didn’t regret, but it did mean that any of the times Peggy called the office, and many times she hadn’t, Daniel didn’t escape questioning when he couldn’t _bring_ himself to say anything to her. He simply couldn’t. At first, it was a matter of needing distraction. He could swear every molecule of his body missed having hers in its vicinity and it hurt and it never seemed like there was any way to explain that which would leave them on good terms. And even once he had enough of a routine down not to be constantly weighed down by his wishing, the time difference was problematic and they hadn’t spoken in weeks and half the time he thought about how much he’d loved to hear her voice he got hard, and he just couldn’t handle it.

Yet Peggy kept trying, clearly but probably not intentionally, just by calling at all, just by wanting to know how he was, to drag him back to where he’d been before: sad, doting, pining, conflicted, sitting down to his first cup of coffee at work wondering whether any given day would be _the_ day one of them would manage to say _something_ with enough of a hint of romance to it that something would actually happen between them. He couldn’t bear to sit around and wait, to continue chancing that he’d trip over himself, or forever be alone, if her gentle kindnesses _were_ just that, if she _didn’t_ feel anything like what he did. 

He’d thought she didn’t, and apparently he’d missed something, because she’d come here because she’d thought he’d asked for her, and her voice had such a lovely nervous lift to it when she’d first said hello - and dear _heavens_ , when she’d called him Chief - and she’d damn near been quoting him when she asked him for a drink, and he’d recognized not only shock but the look of latent sadness that had swelled up inside of her when she’d seen the ring, and...and she _loved_ him. She’d _said_ it. She hadn’t been holding back when it came out, had been angry and crying and speaking too quickly to be putting too much thought into her words and _she’d said it._ And everything had changed, again.

Daniel’s been told before that one didn’t know what they had until it was gone, and maybe that was true, too - maybe that’s how Peggy had realized how she felt, maybe it had been after he’d left - but he now knew that sometimes you didn’t really _know_ what you wanted until it bit you. 

Before, it had been something he could ignore, something he could shove away, with varying degrees of success, but now...now that he’d heard the word jump from Peggy’s lips, now that he wasn’t trying to convince himself or Rose or even Violet that he’d moved on, every breath was heavy with his desperate desire to hear it _again_. To say it himself, to prove it to her, to never have to stop saying it. _He loved her._ He’d tried not to, he’d tried to hide it, and early on after meeting her he hadn’t even known it; not until Krzeminski had brought it up had Daniel realized how deeply he’d fallen in that moment they’d first met, and then and afterwards he’d denied it, or at least, done his best to. And yet, he’d known, too, since realizing that she’d been the blonde in the gold dress, that he always would love her, regardless of what happened, what she did, how many lines she crossed.

And he certainly hadn’t thought to check, but apparently he loved her no matter how much of a life he tried to build on his own...no matter how many walls he built, how strong he thought they were, all she had to do was walk up with half a smile across her lips and a door appeared to welcome her through. 

But she’d done practically what he had, and walked back out after finding another woman there in his heart, and he didn’t know how forgiving she’d be now. She was the one who’d lost someone before, and so recently, and no one had given her much of a chance to actually move ahead with her life. He knew better than most people how often she was confined and downgraded to being Captain America’s girlfriend...and maybe he’d done the same, and not given her a chance to move past that reputation. He’d certainly acted differently toward her with that reminder echoing in his head - the omnipresent knowledge that he just plain didn’t measure up.

Now, though, when he thinks about it, he can’t help but recall that first real conversation...how it had started because some of their co-workers found it funny to imply she’d slept around - even that she’d slept her way up the military social ladder, though less in that particular instance than in others. 

She almost never showed as much emotion at the office as she did undercover the couple times he’d been witness; it simply wasn’t an option, when all her co-workers were men, the vast majority of whom were comfortable openly mocking and slandering her, and some of whom were comfortable with the idea of touching her as though she had to accept it. To have really shown affection at work would probably have been dreadful for her career, and it was embarrassing to Daniel that he’d really never thought of it in that light. He’d wanted so much and thought so little, thought so little of something more than the offense she could take, the damage that he could do, how badly she’d already been hurt. 

Yet as much as he’d convinced himself he tried hard enough not to, he’d expected things from her. He’d expected that eventually things would turn around in his favor, if he earned it. 

He’d never asked her what a man would need to do to prove he had.


	4. Chapter 4

She should have known he’d been lying. Jack Thompson didn’t give enough damns about Daniel, let alone about _her_ , to have actually communicated a message like that. If anything, if Daniel _had_ asked for her, he’d have sent someone else to Los Angeles, and then told Peggy that she’d better hurry up with Dottie because he’d just fought to keep her so she could deal with her. And it all would have been lies. 

It all is a lie anyway, isn’t it?

Everything she’d kept telling herself.

He’s in charge, he’s busy, he got the message too late and the time difference was of issue, he was undercover, the phones didn’t work correctly and he didn’t receive the message...but no. And because she was so terribly desperate she’d even slipped into his office one night she’d been there alone and there they were, right there, next to the machine on his desk: notes on notepad paper, in Daniel’s own handwriting, all stacked on top of each other and pressed into the desk with a tack, with dates and the same, unfollowed, command: “Call Peggy.”

That should have been simple enough.

But he had a girlfriend. A girlfriend he _loved_. A girlfriend he loved enough to _propose_ to her; and even worse he _clearly_ knew - he’d known all along, or at least since some point after the fact, that Peggy had fallen for him, and he’d _let_ her hope...of course it could be argued that after a certain point he hadn’t answered because he didn’t want to have to be the one to tell her about Violet but....if he hadn’t known how she felt then why would he have felt the need to keep it from her? Or perhaps he just truly wanted to cut his ties to New York, but she couldn’t help thinking that if it had been New York that was the problem he’d not have asked for Rose. He wouldn’t even have called Thompson, even if he’d known that Thompson might be the most likely chief to loan him an agent or two.

So even from a purely investigative point of view, the problem _was_ her. Regardless of the fact she’d barely even realized her feelings by the time he’d left and despite what she’d thought of as success in concealing said feelings while at work. 

Has she not been successful? Had it been embarrassing? Was it office gossip? She knew that the boys had made bets on how long it would take Krzeminski’s wife to find out about his mistress; had they done the same in regard to how long Daniel would wait before - no. 

The interaction that seemed to have changed things was his invitation for a drink, the day Peggy had taken Angie to the place of Howard’s that was offered to them. _He’d_ asked, and _she’d_ had plans.

Just like he had with Violet when he’d turned down her invitation.

_Oh._

_Oh, bloody hell._

+

Not today, Daniel had ultimately decided. Not yet. He just had to pull himself together, come to terms with the fact that his now-former girlfriend had just left him as a means of giving him permission to chase the girl he really wanted.

That didn’t, however, mean that said former girlfriend was naive enough to leave it all up to him. After all, last time he’d made a pass on Peggy, he’d ended up moving the hell across the country because he mistakenly thought the feelings he had weren’t mutual. But clearly he had some blindness, too, because even in the awkward moment when Daniel found out that they’d just met, the way Peggy hid behind that smile, and thinking back on it Violet knows she may as well have been trying to disappear because she was biting her tongue to keep from exclaiming that _she_ was the one Daniel should be taking out to nice dinners and kissing out by his car in the evenings and...well, he wouldn’t be apologizing to her for having to work late since they worked together, but the point remained, as did the great gap between what they each thought they knew and what the truth was. 

Violet’s only ever _tried_ to be a poet, but she’s never tried to be any sort of matchmaker before. She really just smiled and did her best most of the time; confronting people was not her forte. Hell, her parents still thought she intended to leave the hospital once she got married.

She doesn’t make much, just a single batch of cookies - enough to justify a delivery to a friend. Mr and Mrs Jarvis both come meet her at a cute little cafe, and insist on having tea before they all head back home: Violet, quite possibly to an empty house; and the Jarvises, to the house they shared with Peggy, basket of cookies in tow.

+

The gift isn’t signed, but the sheer fact that it’s a batch of cookies tells Peggy practically everything she needs to know, really….outside of why.

Until, at least, a small folded-up note falls out from inside the fabric napkin curled around the cookies. 

“All yours - both the cookies, and the man,” it reads, and Peggy can't help a sigh of _something_ that comes out like a relieved gasp.

And on the back, a phone number with a heart drawn next to it and another note: "we should actually get dinner sometime, okay?"


End file.
